Re: More Ere:tas: The fable of the North Wind and the Sun
| From: | Josh Roth <fuscian@...> |
|---|
| Date: | Sunday, November 4, 2001, 4:17 |
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In a message dated 11/1/01 2:31:54 AM, christophe.grandsire@FREE.FR writes:
>En réponse à Andreas Johansson <and_yo@...>:
>
>>
>> Speaking of 'a's, is there any (real-world) language that have a
>> phonemic
>> contrast between [A] and [a]? To my ears, they sound very different
>> (much
>> more so than for instance [o] and [O]).
>>
>
>French did until one generation ago. I remember when I was a child I used
>to
>make the difference in my speech. Now I still can hear the difference but
>I
>don't do it anymore. Too bad, it was practical to differentiate some words
>(eg. 'pattes' /pat/: legs - of animal - vs. 'pâtes' /pAt/: pasta). I remember
>I
>was taught at school that those two a's were different. And knowing the
>French
>system of education, children of today are probably still taught there
>is a
>difference, and must be, rightly, wondering what the difference is :))
>.
When I learned French in high school (in the US), my teacher made a big deal
about the difference beterrn /u/ and /y/, which I thought was obvious, but
when I realized a couple of months ago that my dictionary also distinguished
between /a/ and /A/, and /2/ (o with a slash) and /9/ (o-e ligature), I was
shocked! It could be of course, that my French teachers did make the
distinctions when they spoke but I just never noticed (and they certainly
didn't point them out). I can pronounce all four sounds if I try, but if I
just start speaking French, I don't even know which pronunciation to use for
which words - I'd have to look them all up. Is the /a/ vs. /A/ distinction
gone in all dialects, and now that they have merged for you, which do you
pronounce - are both of your examples above now /pat/ or /pAt/ ? And what
about the /2/ vs. /9/ distinction - is that still made?
Josh Roth
http://members.aol.com/fuscian/eloshtan.html
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